Spare Us A Pardon

November 10, 1992

Presidential pardons for all Iran-contra defendants? An investigation of whether special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh timed the release of a revised indictment to embarrass President Bush just before the election?

These suggestions are coming from Republicans -- most notably Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole and Vice President Dan Quayle -- who are sore over Mr. Bush's loss to Bill Clinton last week.

When the hurt goes away, they perhaps will see the injustice, not to mention the harmful political consequences, of pardons and a witch hunt aimed at Mr. Walsh.

Pardoning Iran-contra defendants would be an unwarranted intrusion into the criminal-justice process. It would be the ultimate coverup, giving a cynical public greater reason to believe that government is self-serving.

Mr. Bush's place in history, made more honorable with his gracious concession of defeat in the election, would be tarnished by the grubby act of absolving alleged lawbreakers.

A pre-emptive pardon of former Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, who faces charges of lying to Congress, logically could be seen as an attempt by the president to avoid proceedings that might uncover more about Mr. Bush's own role in the scandal.

Mr. Weinberger, who has yet to have his day in court, should fight the idea of a pardon if he believes he is innocent. History will regard a pardon as implying guilt. That was the implication when President Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon in 1974.

Mr. Ford's pardoning of his predecessor denied Americans vital information about how their government functioned during the Nixon years. Pardoning Mr. Weinberger would have a similar effect.

Mr. Dole and some other Republicans believe that the special prosecutor was motivated by politics when he issued a revised indictment against Mr. Weinberger four days before the election. They want a Justice Department investigation.

This is sour grapes, even if the timing seems odd. Mr. Walsh, a Republican and a former judge, denies any political motivation. He explains, plausibly, that he had promised to have his Iran-contra work done by the end of October and that the timing of the last

indictment was a coincidence.

Yes, the revised indictment, based on Mr. Weinberger's notes, shows that then-Vice President Bush took part in discussions on an arms-for-hostages swap in January 1986. Mr. Bush has always claimed he didn't know anything about the deal until mid-December of that year. But polls showed that Americans had long ago concluded, by a 2-1 margin, that Mr. Bush had lied about his role in the Iran-contra affair. The Weinberger indictment didn't tell them anything new.

As for the timing, voters would have been poorly served by a deliberate suppression of the indictment's release until after the election. Such a timetable would also have triggered charges of political motivation